Food & Health

Home & Garden

Travel

Andrew Winston: The Challenge of Climate Math

Posted by Candice Wynter, December 2, 2012

This awakening about the math (and physics) of climate change has coincided with climate activist Bill McKibben’s “Do the Math” tour, an awareness-raising series of events criss-crossing the country this month. The tour was inspired by McKibben’s incredible essay in Rolling Stone magazine, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.”

In this article, McKibben lays out three fundamental climate numbers: to stay below (1) 2 degrees Celsius of warming(the limit the world’s scientists have said might help us avoid the worst of climate change), we can only burn (2) 565 more gigatons (a billion tons) of carbon dioxide, which will force a battle with the fossil fuel industry since it has (3) 2,795 gigatons in reserve. These are important numbers to wrap your head around, but what do they really mean for countries and companies? How fast do we have to change?